[SOLVED] Do NVMe SSD’s require a mobo with NVMe support? No other way?

[Sugar Kaine Mostly]

I have been a happy owner of my HP G2 15 laptop for a good 6 years. I purchased it with the “Z-Drive Turbo” contracted drives from Sandisk’s A110 series. Mine was the 256gb model.

However, I recently purchased Toshiba’s new RC100 drives, a 240gb M.2 2242 NVMe 1.2.1. I guess I only thought PCIe 3.0 x4 was back compatible with PCIe 2.0, and didn’t cross my mind that the HP G2 15 BIOS does not support NVMe based M.2?

I installed the RC100 and I was able to format it, was recognized by my ZBook as I was prepping a new Windows 10 install. The RC100 copied all Windows 10 files ready for installation, but when it came time to reboot the Zbook doesn’t see the Windows 10 boot file protocol and states there’s no hard drive.

Is this all due to NVMe protocol that isn’t supported by motherboard, regardless if mobo recognizes and was able to format the new RC100? Does HP need to release a BIOS update?

 

[velocityg4]

None of the BIOS updates mention the addition of NVMe support. The only mention of M.2 is in regards to fixes for certain types of disk encryption and drivelock. While the computer had a PCIe SSD option the HP Z Turbo Drive. The model officially supported is an older AHCI PCIe SSD not an NVMe model.

If you want a PCIe SSD. I believe you'll be stuck with an AHCI model. Windows can recognize the drive when booted as Windows has NVMe drivers and an M.2 NVMe SSD is still a PCIe device. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell the BIOS does not know how to talk with an NVMe SSD. So, it is useless as a boot device.

If you haven't updated to the latest BIOS. It does add security enhancements to patch Intel flaws. Also some nVidia/AMD firmware updates. It wouldn't be a bad idea to update to the latest BIOS. Who knows maybe NVMe support was added silently.

You could always look into BIOS modding. Add NVMe support yourself.
https://www.win-raid.com/t871f50-Gu...rt-for-all-Systems-with-an-AMI-UEFI-BIOS.html